xantia gear oil gone

chris reid · Post by **chris reid** » 03 Sep 2005, 01:08

My Xantia 1.9 TD has done 130,000 miles and recently the gearbox oil has all gone onto the road leaking out through the botton of the bell housing. To check this I put more oil in which all drained onto the road again. My son was driving when the leak started and he said there was a scraping noise under the car so he drove home. When I took it out there was no noise and the car appears to be driving ok. Does anyone know what the scraping noise was and what damage das been done to cause the oil leak?
Chris
Bristol

Mosser · Post by **Mosser** » 03 Sep 2005, 02:06

could the scraping noise have been him driving 'enthusiastically' over a speed hump and hitting the bottom of the engine/gearbox and cracking the housing somewhere ?, that would be my guess, but you probably know his driving style and whether thats likely

RDD · Post by **RDD** » 03 Sep 2005, 02:12

Are you sure it's at the bottom of the bellhousing, and not the driveshaft seals or the input shaft seal? You'll easily see any scraping or impact marks on the bottom of the bellhousing.
My last Xant had no oil in the gearbox when I went to drain and refill it. All I got was a sort of coppery ooze....

chris reid · Post by **chris reid** » 03 Sep 2005, 13:51

<blockquote id="quote"><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica" id="quote">quote:<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"><i>Originally posted by chris reid</i>

My Xantia 1.9 TD has done 130,000 miles and recently the gearbox oil has all gone onto the road leaking out through the botton of the bell housing. To check this I put more oil in which all drained onto the road again. My son was driving when the leak started and he said there was a scraping noise under the car so he drove home. When I took it out there was no noise and the car appears to be driving ok. Does anyone know what the scraping noise was and what damage das been done to cause the oil leak?
Chris
Bristol
<hr height="1" noshade id="quote"></blockquote id="quote"></font id="quote">

chris reid · Post by **chris reid** » 03 Sep 2005, 14:01

I checked underneath and there is no sign of damage to casings etc. Something failed suddenly as there is a trail of oil on the ground i.e. the oil has not slowly dripped away over a period of time. The clutch has never been replaced. Does it get to a point where as it wears, something eventually rubs against the gearbox casing? Alternatively a failure in the gearbox or diff could have punched a hole in the casing where the gearbox mates with the bell housing but how can I continue to drive the car in this case?

oilyspanner · Post by **oilyspanner** » 03 Sep 2005, 14:39

I have experienced a scraping noise in conjunction with clutch failure, it was the driven plate falling to bits, no oil was lost though, if the oil is coming out of the bellhousing and theres no actual impact damage then it has to be the input shaft seal, though the driveshaft seals are not too far away and it is possible that wind could blow the leaking oil around,
Stewart

AndersDK · Post by **AndersDK** » 03 Sep 2005, 20:56

Any gearbox oil leaking out the input shaft seal will not empty the gearbox. This will only contaminate the clutch and rather fast stop leaking as the oil level descends during drive as the oil distributes inside the box. In other words only causes smallish leaks.
If the gearbox positively runs dry shortly you either have totally shot driveaxle seals - or a crack in the differential housing. Such a crack has a nasty tendency to only show up when the differential unit is under load from driving the car.
Unfortunately cracked/split differential housings are not unheard of on PSA gearbox units [8]
Your gearbox will be damaged quickly to the gross failure point if you dont correct the problem.

JohnT · Post by **JohnT** » 03 Sep 2005, 23:43

Wherever the loss is coming from the source must be very obvious if that amount is being lost? Oil loss from the drive shaft oil seals will normally only occurr when the shafts are rotating. My money is on a hair line crack, not easily seen at first, in the casing which I have seen before on a BX diesel unit. I hope your news is better.

madasafish · Post by **madasafish** » 04 Sep 2005, 00:16

If you think you may have a hairline crack, wipe gearbox and differential lower half clean and then use a talcum powder puffer to cover in white dust. Inspect after some 20--30 miles. Oil leaks will show as rivulets in the talcum powder.

Dave Burns · Post by **Dave Burns** » 04 Sep 2005, 03:20

Not long ago an old workmate of mine was fitting a new thermostat in his xantia, unfortunately he dropped the socket he was using through the hole in the bell housing, foolishly he decided to risk it, he didn't get far, the socket got between the starter ring and the gearbox casting and punched it through, he lost all his oil this way and I ended up selling him my spare box.
Sounds like you have experienced a similar fate, question is what was the foreign body.
Dave